bodysurfer7's Xanga

Mariokart Master

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:04:34 GMT

Bond, Halo, Madden, NBA Live; those were the games that everyone played back in the college days. For my roommate Chivis and I, the game was Mariokart battle mode. It started out in our suite with Dougy Fresh, Nate-dogg, Chiv and I in a four player battle with others coming in and out, but by senior year it was always heads up between me and Chiv. Wario v. Yoshi. Others would try to mix with us but they'd get a turtle shell dropped on them or get tail whipped by a question mark box. No one could compete. The two of us were that deadly.

First let me introduce you to Chiv. A hip cool hapa surfer/skater from Torrance who looks like a skinny Japanese boy but brings the wood (a la our starting free safety). Totally anal. Won't let you sit on his bed and has two pairs of all his Nike Jordan's collection (one for wearing and one for display). Smart as shit and even more disciplined. Will study in his room for several hours even during a party and then join when finished. The top math student and phi beta kappa.

Recently I got an email from Chiv. He teaches math at Torrance High. On the last day before winter break, he decided to give the kids a free day and told them to bring in some videos. His second period class brought in Mariokart instead. You see, Chiv had been shit talking them, telling them how he used to dominate and was the best player in the world. Well the kids decided to call him out on it and they played.

Chiv 20-2nd Period 0.

In his words, "I spanked those kids and made them cry." They even presented him with a trophy when they got back to school. And he still talks shit. I think the best part is that the bastard gave me my props. "Don't worry, I told them that you are the #2 ranked player in the world. And I just wanted to thank you for enhancing my skills. I couldn't have done it without your help......hahahahaha.... I own you!"

Waaaaah! I'm a gonna win!!!

New Year's Resolutions

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 13:31:32 GMT

"Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around." Vanilla Sky

I need something to shoot for and that's why I make New Year's resolutions.

1. Lose 10lbs and gain a six pack. One day over the Christmas break my brother and I were getting ready to go bodysurfing. We were gathering our fins and I didn't have my shirt on when he said,"hey buddy, take off the inner tube." I put my arms up to my waist...doh! what a bastard.

2. Don't procrastinate. I have a serious problem of "planning" things for later when I could be doing them now. Grad school apps and standardized exams will creep up faster than I think.

3. Study Japanese. Every year I make this promise and every year it never happens. At some point I will be embarrassed at how poor my Japanese is compared to how long I've been here and I will do something about it.

The Year in Review

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:46:33 GMT

2006 was a really fast year. It came and went. If I was to rate it against the rest of my years in Japan, I'd say it was the least memorable. It wasn't bad per se, just not very spectacular.

Three Things I Learned in 2006

1. I can't be in a relationship just to be in a relationship (i.e. girlfriends are overated). I need to feel something. I want to believe in love. I want to be in love. Where is it and how do I get in?

2. I have a happy life because I have good friends and a good family.

3. I can't live in Japan forever.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 15:21:52 GMT

It's already Thanksgiving, but I'm celebrating it tomorrow so you'll get that write up in another month or so. HA!

Anyway I'm still on about Halloween. In October, I bought myself a Halloween present. It was very thoughtful of me, wasn't it?. I decided to splurge on a new ipod video. So far it's been great. I downloaded several movies to it. I got some games including texas hold em and tetris. I've also been using it in class to show students pictures of my family, halloween, etc. My favorite though has been audio books. I still prefer to read, but it's been nice to just listen. So far I've listened to Stephen King's novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, the Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, H.G. Wells' the Time Machine, and some other self help stuff. I must say that the Shawshank Redemption is one of the few movies that is as good as the book.

In other news, my flag football club will be playing in the Kanto championship game for the second consecutive year. We lost to the team that we are playing in the final a couple of weeks ago. It was pretty silly. We were winning by two touchdowns and decided to put in our subs. They came back to tie the game at the end of regulation and then scored in overtime for the win. Mentally it was a pretty bad lapse for us, but I think we are pretty confident going into the final.

Ohio State is in the BCS championship game for college football. Their opponent is still unknown, but it is sure to come with some controversy. I think there are only three one-loss teams that legitimately have a shot in the championship game and that is USC, Florida, and Michigan. I think if either USC or Florida win the rest of their games then Michigan is out. A lot of people think that Michigan is the second best team in the country and they very well could be, but I think the argument should be made that they had their shot at OSU and missed. If both USC and Florida lose then it'll be Michigan, but if not then we'll give another team a chance who is deserving. The toughest decision would be if both Florida and USC win out. Florida will have won the SEC, arguably the toughest conference in the country this year. Although USC plays in the not so tough Pac-10, they will have beaten Arkansas, Notre Dame, Nebraska, and Cal which is a monster schedule. I imagine in this scenario USC would advance due to the difficulty of schedule, but it will come down to how well Florida plays against Arkansas as well. My pick is Ohio State v. USC in the Fiesta sealed by USC's destruction of Notre Dame this weekend.

Here comes Halloween!

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 08:28:53 GMT

Halloween isn't so big in Japan. Most people don't know what it is nor celebrate it. Some stores will have decorations but it is hardly on the level of back home. Surprisingly kindergarteners will celebrate it at school, but very few of the college students in my classes celebrated it. I think there were only two students out of a hundred who admitted to going to a Halloween party. Thanks to the gaijin community though, Halloween in Tokyo is pretty damn fun.

I was a little worried about Halloween this year. The normal partiers like Cora, the Fukuoka girls, and the Niigata girls all left Japan. Furthermore Greg's in Osaka, John was off to the Philipines, Mitzi had bunkasai, and Christy had the wiener. Where did that leave me? I have no idea, but I still managed to have a good one.

On the Wednesday before Halloween we went to the annual Glitterball hosted by the gaijin friendly mag Metropolis. As usual there were a lot of good looking people dressed in all sorts of outrageous costumes. I seemed to get a lot of responses this year in the form of "ah Mario da" or "It's Mario!" to which I had to reply "that's SUPER MARIO to you". I would also often get "Where's Luigi?" or "Do you have any mushrooms?" If we had planned it better John and I could have gone together as Mario and Luigi. Instead he went as Brokeback.

On Saturday, I went to Amanda, Yuki, and Miwa's house party. They lived somewhere between Yoyogi Hachimangu and Shibuya. I got super lost but on the way I noticed a bumble bee, batman, and storm. I figure there couldn't be two house parties in the same neighborhood so I followed them and luckily it lead me their place. Yuki works for Heineken Japan so we drank free Heiney's all night. It's been a while since I've been to a house party so it was good fun meeting all new peeps. Nothing too crazy. When Christy sends me the pics, I'll upload some from this party.

Around 12, I bounced with Ginger, Ryohei, and my co-worker Tom to another party that Bobby, Ichi, Ayako, and some of the others were at. This one was a college party put together by a different Yuki and Kaori. They rented out a small club/bar. A lot of their friends are DJ's so we had some cool beats spinning. And guess what I found at the party... a princess!

It was an all night debauchery with a lot of familiar faces. Check it out yo!

Keeping young and living the good life.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 12:43:27 GMT

My roommate John has done some really cool jobs. He was an announcer at the World Basketball Championships this summer. He modeled for different magazine ads. He promoted his friend's bands at some small clubs. He got a job where he appeared on stage at a Beyonce concert. He did a commercial for fabric softener. You can play around with him on the website. He even got to translate for the British band Milburn at Fuji Rock (Actually I don't know who they are or if they are even cool, but whatever). You would think that a guy with these kind of gigs would be able to hook a braddah up you know. All we've ever gotten were pictures and an email that says, "you guys should jump the fence, Fuji Rock is awesome." Bastard.

Last week John called me up and asked me if I wanted to go drink. He was taking around a wrestler (not WWE) from the states who was in Japan doing some motivational speaking. I had never heard of him before, but I knew I had to meet him. Having wrestled throughout junior high school and high school, I know the rigors and demands that go into the sport. Wrestling is not about athleticism. Iolani produced a lot of good wrestlers and let me tell you, a lot of those guys can't dribble or catch a ball to save their lives. Unlike other sports, great wrestlers don't become great because of their talent, they do so because of hard work and determination.

Through John, I met Kyle Maynard. I know no one has worked as hard or has been as determined to become a champion wrestler. Kyle is not your normal person. He was born a congenital amputee. He has no elbows or knees. Just hearing his story will inspire you. Ever since he was a kid he loved sports and he refused to wear prosthetics that would make him "look normal" because it affected his mobility. His father got him into wrestling and he just took to it. Early in his career he took his lickings, but he never made excuses and was able to persevere to a starting 103 spot on his varsity team and also advanced deep in the Georgia state finals. He has done a lot of things that people would say he couldn't do and he keeps proving them wrong.

When John and I met up with Kyle and his buddy in Roppongi, he had a big smile, enthusiastically said "hey what's up", and swung his arm at John like you would do when doing the shake hands/hug thing with an old bud, except of course that Kyle doesn't have a hand, so John grabbed his stub. I was blown away. I hope this sounds like a compliment but he was just like one of the boys. He is super outgoing, friendly, down-to-earth, and really positive. John told him I wrestled in high school and we talked a little of that and also about how he is getting into jiu jitsu and submission wrestling. I really wanted to talk to him more about it, but there were non-wrestlers at the table and it would have been rude. Instead we chatted about other things that guys chat about like sports and girls. Kyle has not let his physical differences interfere with his life and that is the biggest reason why he is so inspirational to so many people. I feel very fortunate to have met him and I thank John for giving me that opportunity.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 11:03:53 GMT

When I told people I was traveling this summer, the question I seemed to get a lot of was "Why Singapore and Malaysia?"

The answer I should've given was "Why not?"

The Trip

I left Hawaii at 9am on September 5 and didn't arrive in Singapore until 2am on Sept.7. This alone characterized my trip. I spent way too much time in airplanes and airports. Unfortunately thats just the way it was since we didn't have much time and wanted to hit different spots. I probably spent less than 24 hours total in Singapore.

I flew in, met up with Greg, John, Dorian, and Doyle (who had already been there for a day), saw the Merlion then boarded a plane to Langkawi.

Langkawi, an island near Thai border, was a pretty relaxing place. It wasn't the tourist trap that Phuket or Kuta was. Actually there hardly seemed to be any people at all. Of course this meant no partying, but we did get into a lot of outdoor activities. After spending the first night in a dump, we decided to move it on up and spend $10 a night on a pink palace.

The hotel had a pretty sweet pool so a lot of our time was spent lounging there.

Coming soon to a Playgirl near you!

One of the highlights of Langkawi was hiking out along a river to a waterfall. We took turns riding the natural slides provided by the river.

We spent two days on Langkawi before hitting up Kuala Lumpur (KL as the locals seemed to call it). KL is a multicultural city and probably most famous for the Petronas Twin Towers. Like all cities we visit, we shopped and ate. The Chinese food was great and the Indian food there was way better than anything I've had to date. We hit up the markets and bought a few dvds and polos but they didn't have any nicer clothing like Armani that I was looking for. Greg and I also went out with a couple of Brits that we met at the airport, but all in all we didn't party too much (perhaps due to the lack of game?).

After two days in KL,we returned to Singapore for the night before heading back to Tokyo. As a last activity, we went to the Night Safari. Like the name suggests, the Night Safari is a zoo that is viewed only at night. You ride on a tram through different habitats and some of the safer animals can literally walk up to the tram and sit in your lap (of course they don't, but they could if they wanted to). There are also several areas you can walk through like the flying squirrel and bat areas. If you visit Singapore, I think its worth it to check out the night safari.

All in all another good trip!

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 06:49:31 GMT

Going to see the Family

I was teaching two five year olds the other day about the members of a family. We had gone through the flash cards, looked at a picture book, and played some games. They really picked up the vocabulary quickly. Near the end of class, I pointed out the door window and asked them who those two ladies were. They correctly told me it was their mothers. I then brought out a picture of my family and showed it to them. They pointed me out and started laughing. I'm not sure what was so funny but I guess I'm a funny guy.

Anyway I pointed to the person next to me and asked, "Who is that?"

The kids yelled out "Grandpa!"

I was horrified. "That's not grandpa. That's my father."

"Grandfather!" the kids yelled out again, thinking that I corrected them.

"Uh oh. Err... who is that?"

"Grandmother!"

"Raaiight....Ok, then who is that" I asked, pointing to my younger brother.

"That's father!"

As you can see, I'm a great teacher. I can't wait to see grandfather, grandmother, and father next week though as I head back to the rock in the middle of the sea for my cousin Nikki's wedding. After that it'll be a quick layover in Narita before meeting Greg and Johnny boy in Singapore.

Oh and anyone in Hawaii want to chaffeur me around? My driver's license expired and now I gotta take the drivers test again. Sucks.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 14:41:14 GMT

Unberievable!

Yuki Saito of Waseda Jitsugyo did it again. Complete game, 13 strike outs. And now a championship to go with it. Baseball is not a one man game, but it sure seemed like it today. In a second final against two-time defending Koshien champion Komadai-Tomakomai, Waseda Jitsugyo broke through 4-3 for their first national championship ever.

If what I read on the Asahi Shinbun is correct, he threw 4 complete games and 553 pitches in the last four days and 948 in the tournament. He's a legend. They should just cut his arm off and send it to the hall of fame. Honestly though, I hope this kid grows up to have a brilliant future. He's going to have a future in baseball no doubt, but what are the effects of having to throw so much for your team. The thing is he's not the only one. He's the only one who will be immortalized this year. It's the high school baseball system. Your ace throws every big game. If that means 150 pitches today and 150 tomorrow, so be it. No kid would ever tell his coach, "Sorry coach, I'm not pitching this game, it's going to hinder my pro career."

Do you think something should be done to protect the kids? I know in the Hawaii state baseball championships, the rules state that pitchers are only allowed a certain number of innnings. Basically one guy can't throw every game. I don't know if Japan should or shouldn't do this, but at least it protects the kids and on another note it develops a number two pitcher. It's hard to believe that a team like Waseda didn't have a number two who could have at least thrown one of those games in the last four days. I doubt things will change, but for now we have another story with a hero and a happy ending.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Sun, 20 Aug 2006 07:18:15 GMT

Koshien Championship Game

Waseda Jitsugyo 1- Komadai-Tomakomai 1 (15)

After 15 innnings of nail-biting baseball, the championship game was called. It's times like this where I wish my Japanese was better. I'm not really sure what is happening tomorrow, but I assume they are playing another game from the start . There is the possibility they continue where they left off but if that was the case, they prob should just continue today.

If they do have another 9 innning game, the big question becomes who will pitch tomorrow. The ace from Waseda went all 15 innings and was still throwing gas and striking guys out. The ace from Komadai came in in the third then went the rest of the way. Both teams had opportunities late in the game, but could never capitalize as both pitchers were able to work their way out of jams. It wouldn't surprise me if both pitchers came back tomorrow. Japanese high school teams seem to live and die with their one ace. I wonder how effective they will be though. The Waseda pitcher has now thrown 5 complete games in 9 days. I'm sure the Komadai guy is not far behind. That can't possibly be healthy for their careers. For another day though, they remain heroes for their schools.

Let's go Waseda!